My grandson....

[cjshaker]

My Son made this with a picture of my grandson, who is already a gear-head. Probably the single best meme I've ever seen (no, there's no bias there ), and sooooo true!..lol

[HarleyJack17]

That is a good meme. How cool.

[Bolted to Floor]

 Very true. 

[Nightmist66]

Exactly how I started out.....

[cjshaker]

Exactly how I started out.....

I grew up surrounded by cars, but Hot Wheels were my main play toys when I was really young. I think my Dad still has most of them, because he never threw anything away. Gonna have to check on that.

I admit, I still collect the cool, realistic looking replicas of Ford performance cars. But only if they look period correct and realistic....nothing with modern lettering or goofy wheels. M2 and Johnny Lightning occasionally make some good ones.

[Nightmist66]

I still have all my junk. I could prolly buy a few more car parts if I just sold everything. Yeah, I still occasionally pick up the ones that catch my eye, like you mentioned. M2 recently released a 1:24 A/FX style Mustang that is Cammer powered. I picked that one up.....I also like the stuff from Precision Miniatures, GMP, Acme, etc. Collect some model kits with cool box art too.

[jayb]

For Christmas in 1968 I received a 1/32 scale slot car setup.  The two cars were a Porsche and a Ferrari, IIRC, but I wrote GT-40 on the Porsche.  Guess which one was faster   I made my little brother drive the Ferrari.  Here I am, leading him going into the hairpin 




It was definitely expensive to get attached to that little slot car...

[67428GT500]

It wasn't Hot Wheels for me. It was model kits. Many of you probably know who Tom Daniel is.

                                                                                               -Keith

[Stangman]

Did a lot of models in my younger days!!!

[Heo]

I don't remember that i had any hotwheels. But i remember my Tonka Loader
that i still have somewhere, and a Tonka Roadgrader that an asshole in a
Mercedes  backed over Still hate him to this day
My best friend had a Loader to,  we used to build roads and had gravel pits
where we loaded our trucks with gravel. With one loader and drove to the
road construction site dumped the gravel and smoothed it out with the other
loader and the roadgrader, everthing to authentic sound effects offcause

[BruceS]

I also got a 1/32 slot car set around the early 60s, made by Strombecker IIRC.  No rheostat controls, only on/off buttons!  I really got into slot cars a little later, racing at hobby shop tracks. A friend and I even did a 12-hour race with a 1/24 Cobra; all the cars had to have working head and tail lights because they darkened the shop for 3 or 4 hours. I don't think Hotwheels were invented at that point, but Matchbox had a lot of different vehicles.  Lots of Erector set time too! 

[e philpott]

Great picture Doug !! We 1/64 HO cars at home , got some Hot Wheels when they came out and we raced 1/24 scale slot cars at Minks Model Raceway in Bloomington Illinois from 1966 to around 1972 , the good ole days for a kid

[cjshaker]

I had a slot car track exactly like Jays in the picture. In fact, it had the same layout also. My Dad used to have some 1/24 stuff, and when I was really young we used to go see some professional layouts and races that they would set up in a parking garage in nearby Lima, Ohio. The 1/24 stuff was really heavy, comparatively, and they really took some finesse to get around the tracks.

Then I got into models. At one point my entire bedroom was taken up with models, loaded on every shelf. It got to a point where I was building custom stuff with lacquer paint jobs that I would sand and buff to a glass finish. I detailed every wire and hose/line in the engine bays (it even had a hood release and cable). I even won a few contests with them. I still have the custom chopped top '49 Mercury I made that won a couple of them. It even has keys in the ignition    The last one I made was a custom '28 T-bucket that I made a special engine for, complete with removable heads to show the pistons (it even had a crank and rods, but not moveable), brass shim stock that I made head gaskets out of, drilled out ports on the intake etc etc, to make it look as realistic as possible, and even going so far as using mechanical watch hardware for bolts and nuts on the suspension and making braided line for the hoses. I was really proud of that one! Jeez, I spent a lot of time on that stuff!!..lol  Once I got my license, that all stopped and the real stuff took over.

[GJCAT427]

I never really got into the slot cars but I did get into building model cars. At one point I had between 80-100 models and my mother cleaned house after I graduated high school and moved out! Growing up I was exposed to working on tractors, dozers and trucks.  I really started to get into cars and trucks in the very early 70s. One of the first toys is the 56 F100 with the 427. It started out as an $85 basket case and any one who has seen it at Beaver Springs, Has seen the final result. I still mess with 1/25th models and am currently working on a 56 F100 that matches my real truck. 

[TomP]

I still have my Strombecker slot car set.
 I  remember when HotWheels first came out. a LOT of nagging to my paraents to get  me them. But having two younger brothers hurts resale on those collectibles. They got "sandboxed" and chucked out. All the first ones... the ones worth hundreds each now! Grr.